|
|
|
The wind howled like a pack of hungry wolves, its frenzied gusts whipping Junior’s blond hair into rat’s nests. Pulling his coat closer about him and grimacing from the cold, the small boy hunched over, trying to plow his way through the gusts. He had to get home. Mother had said he shouldn’t go outside in his condition. She still seemed mad at him for drinking the mercury, even though it had been an accident. Junior feared thinking of how mad she would be if she came home and found him gone.
All he had done was go to get some bread. Father had forgotten to pick some up again, and Junior had been hungry when he woke up that afternoon. He had slipped into Father’s study to snatch some money, then left the house, headed for the bakery.
But the wind and the cold proved to be too much for the boy. He had only gotten as far as the street corner, and already he was feeling light-headed. He had immediately turned back to head home, but the biting winds chose that moment to impede him.
If it weren’t for Mother’s tonics, he wouldn’t have been on his feet at all, but the boy was still far from well. A wave of dizziness washed over him, and he slipped in the snow, falling to his knees and hitting the cobbles painfully.
Bleary eyes looked up, tears gathering at their corners from the way the street had scraped the skin off of his knees. The house seemed so far away, though he could see the pale yellow facade winking at him at the far end of the road. All he had to do was get up, keep walking, and he'd be back home, safe back in his bed where he spent most of his days.
But his knees hurt so badly, and Junior knew that moving them would only make the pain increase tenfold. But then again, the cold of snow underneath him bit and stung through his pants mercilessly. He couldn't just sit there. The young boy heaved himself to his feet, wincing and whimpering from pain and tiredness.
Before Junior knew it, one foot had slipped on a half-melted patch of snow, and he found himself falling again. But he was falling further than before...further? His dizzied young mind looked to the right, and his heart clenched with fear. The riverbank sloped downward to his right, and he was sliding right down it, his sickly young body powerless to stop his gliding through the snow.
Breath coming now in short, panicked gasps, Junior scrabbled at the snow bank with mittened hands, grasping for anything solid, grasping for anything that would slow his fall. But nothing was there to hold except snow, the impermanent white powder that mocked him with its apparent substance but melted in his hands. He willed his legs to swing underneath him and plant them against the bank to fight the pull of gravity, but his legs refused to respond. He continued to slide, spinning, now going buttocks-downward, towards river's edge.
Somehow, Junior was able to twist his head around enough to get a good look at his destination, regarding it with bulging eyes. The river looked frozen solid, and suddenly frantic optimism bloomed inside Junior's mind. I won't drown...I'll just go on the ice. Right? Right!
The scrawny form skidded onto the frozen surface of the river, sliding a few feet before coming to a halt.
Junior's panic subsided, rapidly replaced with invigorated relief. The boy let out a long-held breath followed by an uncertain, gratified giggle. He lay where he was for a moment, catching his breath, ignoring the stinging cold of the ice stabbing straight through his clothes. The silence and stillness of the winter atmosphere teetered between a relieved sigh and a sharp intake of air.
Horror widened Junior's eyes as he heard an ominous crack reverberate through the ice beneath him.
The ground beneath him shattered, and the child's body plunged through the ice. Air and light were robbed from him as the water closed over his head, dragging him downwards into oblivion. He struggled once, twice, to regain light and life, but all of his efforts were in vain.
All efforts were in vain.
 x Crux · Thu May 03, 2007 @ 02:25pm · 0 Comments |
|
|
|
|
|
